322 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



of the many nests which have come in my way. The eggs 

 were always white, without any spots on them. 



Probably travellers have erred in asserting that the 

 monkeys of South America throw sticks and fruit at their 

 pursuers. I have had fine opportunities of narrowly 

 watching the different species of monkeys which are found 

 in the wilds, betwixt the Amazons and the Oroonoque. 

 I entirely acquit them of acting on the offensive. When 

 the monkeys are in the high trees over your head, the 

 dead branches will now and then fall down upon you, 

 having been broken off as the monkeys pass along them ; 

 but they are never hurled from their hands. 



Monkeys, commonly so called, both in the old and new 

 continent, may be classed into three grand divisions : 

 namely, the ape, which has no tail whatever ; the baboon, 

 which has only a short tail ; and the monkey, which has 

 a long tail. There are no apes, and no baboons, as yet 

 discovered in the new world. Its monkeys may be very 

 well and very briefly ranged under two heads ; namely, 

 those with hairy and bushy tails; and those whose tails 

 are bare of hair underneath, about six inches from the 

 extremity. Those with hairy and bushy tails climb just 

 like the squirrel, and make no use of the tail to help them 

 from branch to branch. Those which have the tail bare 

 underneath towards the end, find it of infinite advantage 

 to them, in their ascent and descent. They apply it to the 

 branch of the tree, as though it were a supple finger, and 

 frequently swing by it from the branch like the pendulum 

 of a clock. It answers all the purposes of a fifth hand to 

 the monkey, as naturalists have already observed. 



The large red monkey of Dernerara is not a baboon, 

 though it goes by that name, having a long prensile tail. 1 



1 I believe prensile is a new-coined word. I have seen it, but do not 

 remember where. 



